


la douleur exquise

by neverwantedtodance



Series: my youth (is yours) [3]
Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: F/F, Friends With Benefits, mentions of diamari & dia/others, mentions of smoking, sequel to my first yoshidia work, you don't necessarily have to read that but you probably should
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 02:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwantedtodance/pseuds/neverwantedtodance
Summary: “How many others have there been for you?” Yoshiko asks, her hand resting on the swell of Dia's hip.Dia's breath falters, then steadies again. “A few. More than a few.”





	la douleur exquise

**Author's Note:**

> it's ya boy back with more yoshidia  
> this is a SEQUEL to my first yoshidia work 'a study in lingerie' !! u don't have to read that one but idk it probably would be best if u did & also i assume that if you're here u like yoshidia so why not read it ya know? so read it here ;) /works/12071787  
> i hope everyone enjoys this fic!! please leave kudos & comments if you did!!

They fall together against the bed, a tangle of limbs and soft cotton clothes. It’s the first time they’re meeting properly in winter, and it means more layers to remove before they can taste each other's skin and run fingers across bones.

“Your hands are cold,” Dia chuckles as Yoshiko’s black-painted fingernails scrape her side. The cold forces them to be closer together, and Dia welcomes the intimacy; it’s been a while since she’s been this close to someone.

“Warm them up then,” Yoshiko says, pressing down harder even as Dia squirms. The electric light in the apartment bedroom flickers, and a car drives past, the headlights shining through the blinds and making a pattern of light on Yoshiko’s face. Dia feels a rush of affection for her then, for this person who is willing to come back to her each time. She wants to devour her.

“Let’s stop talking,” she murmurs, and presses her lips against the other woman’s collarbone.

After they’re spent and exhausted, they lie together, and Dia thinks over what’s just happened. Each time they make love there’s a sense of time being stopped and held, for one wondrous moment, in their entwined hands. She’s not even sure she’d call it making love. It’s more like an experience, a conversation, and besides, there is no romantic love between them. She turns and rests on her side, staring at Yoshiko’s figure: a dark-haired woman with a thin face, a long nose, and pink-red lips, propped up against a greyish pillow. She could be anywhere but here. In bed with another woman, one who would be by her side and in her bed all the time, a real relationship. One Dia can’t offer her. Although she loves their arrangement she can’t help but feel as if she’s holding Yoshiko back.

As if she feels Dia’s gaze on her, Yoshiko turns around. She raises an eyebrow.

“Want a smoke?” she asks, her voice deep.

Dia sniffs. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

Yoshiko shrugs, “Only occasionally. You look like you need one, anyway. What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, just about… this, I guess.”

Yoshiko’s eyes gleam. “About this?” she asks devilishly, her hand trailing up Dia’s stomach. Even in her confident touch Dia can see a trace of the young woman - no, girl - that sat in her old car all those years ago and burned with desire.

“I feel like I’ve ruined you,” she finally confesses. It’s a sentence she often exclaims jokingly during flirtatious cafe dates before they meet up, but all trace of humour is gone from her voice. Yoshiko sits up straighter. Her hand slips away from Dia, and she finds herself simultaneously wishing for the touch once more, and wanting to never be touched again.

She continues speaking, “Sometimes I feel like I… shouldn’t have done what I did. Back then, in my car. You were two years younger than me, I shouldn’t have pushed myself onto you.”

Yoshiko rests on an elbow, a concerned expression on her face. “I knew what I was doing, Dia,” she says. “And I don’t regret anything. If anything, I pushed myself on you.” She smiles as she recalls the memory. In these cold days she can almost remember the exact feeling she had then: the way her breath stood out in the air, the song playing on the radio, Dia’s fingers on her thigh. That last one is more than just a memory.

She places her own hand on Dia’s arm. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

“You should be with someone else,” Dia blurts out.

Yoshiko blinks. “Are you saying you want me to be with someone else?”

She’s surprisingly calm, and Dia doesn’t know what she did to deserve a friend like Yoshiko, a friend who lets Dia love and leave without seeking anything else. It’s a lifestyle Dia likes, but she still believes she’s forced it onto Yoshiko.

“You know you can see other people - other women,” she says. “If you want to.”

Yoshiko nods. “I know.”

“Have you? Been with someone else?”

Yoshiko shifts. “A few times. A girl in my class at university. Someone at a party.”

Dia relaxes. Somehow, the knowledge that others have gotten to see Yoshiko at her most vulnerable, have made her gasp and moan just like she herself has, is extremely relieving.

“Am I holding you back?” she whispers. She’s surprised Yoshiko even hears her.

“If you were, you know I’d tell you.” She cups Dia’s face. Others before Yoshiko have tried to force these romantic gestures onto her, and she’s never complied, but with her they never feel suffocating.

“Though I do love spending time with you the most,” she continues.

Dia nods, though she’s still uneasy.

“How many others have there been for you?” Yoshiko asks, her hand resting on the swell of Dia's hip.

Dia's breath falters, then steadies again. “A few. More than a few.” Yoshiko's presence is solid next to her, a reminder of life and existence. Her eyes are large and unblinking as she stares at Dia.

Dia tries not to think about the past. She feels a sense of shame, almost, at the long list of past lovers she has, some of whom she doesn’t have names for.

“Most of them were meaningless,” she says. “Though there were some…” She thinks of Mari then, of the way Mari holds her and makes her feel both young and old again.

“Like Mari.” She sighs.

“Mari?” asks Yoshiko, and Dia stills.

“We have had … relations,” Dia says awkwardly, and to her surprise Yoshiko giggles.

“You had ‘relations’? That’s the most you way of putting it,” she says, in between laughter. Dia feels a smile twitch onto her face.

“How else am I meant to say it?” she asks, rolling her eyes, relieved that the situation hasn't escalated. If it were any other person they’d have kicked up a fuss, but not Yoshiko - Yoshiko, she feels, understands her more intimately than anyone else.

“Do you love Mari?” Yoshiko asks once she’s stopped laughing.

“I don’t know. It feels like I’m in a dream when I think about love… I’m a disgrace,” Dia says, and Yoshiko protests. But she continues. “Do you think I’m wrong? I haven’t had a stable relationship since I was eighteen, I sleep around, and I’m going to inevitably disappoint my family when I never bring a man home. What am I doing with my life?”

“You’re only twenty. Not much of a life yet, is it? You’ve got time”

She turns to look at Yoshiko. She’s sprawled on the bed, one leg poking out the sheet. The skin of her calf is pale and smooth. Dia imagines her lips against that flesh, the contrast of red and white. Life is moving so quickly, but Yoshiko’s body is a constant.

“Dia, I don’t think you’re a disgrace. I don’t think you were wrong for coming onto me when you were my senior. I don’t care if you fuck me while you fuck Mari or whoever else you’re involved with. And you’re not holding me back from seeking my own relationships,” Yoshiko states in one long breath, while Dia can only stare at her.

Yoshiko notices Dia staring, and a blush slowly rises up her chest and onto her face. Dia chuckles.

“Thank you for the free counselling session. Sorry if it turned you off,” she says, no other way to thank Yoshiko and show the effect her words have had on her other than humour. Yoshiko turns even more red. She huffs, grabbing a thin pale pink dressing gown and slipping it on. She snatches a packet of cigarettes from the bedside table and gets up.

“I’m going to smoke,” she says, her voice unable to hide her pleased embarrassment, “and when I get back I want happy Dia back, okay?”

Dia nods. “I’ll do my best not to disappoint.”

Yoshiko pulls open the door to the small balcony. There’s a flash of orange light and then a thin trail of smoke rises up into the midwinter night.

Dia lays back against the sheets, content. She can’t stop time passing and she can’t change her contrary search for both intimacy and independence, but she can control and direct her passion for Yoshiko’s flesh into a simple act, and that’s enough for now.

 _The past is gone_ , she thinks, _I can’t change that_. But she can relax against the soft sheets and feel the ghost of a kiss against her own lips. The clock clicks as it changes to midnight.

She stares at Yoshiko’s figure on the balcony, tall and thin and weak and strong, and feels a smile slip onto her face.

She has time. Besides, tomorrow - today -  is a new day.


End file.
